Disabling Cores on i7-920

[OrbitzXT]

I've been noticing that my i7-920 never gets close to maxing out, so I disabled hyper threading some time ago to see if I could push my overclocking a bit farther. I'm still not anywhere close to maxing the cores while playing the games I do with 4 cores, would it make sense to essentially turn my chip into a dual core and clock it even higher?

Does this even make sense to try? Heat hasn't been an issue, so the 2 active cores are still going to require the same amount of voltage, right?

 

[slyfox2151]

um.... if there is no option in the bios to disable the other cores, then the only other option is to disable them in windows.

open up MSCONFIG,
click on the boot tab
click advanced
then change the number of "processors" to the amount of cores you want to use.




its unlikely to help you over clock much higher, i wouldn't expect more then 150MHz higher then your current clock at best.

 

[Bo$$]

um.... if there is no option in the bios to disable the other cores, then the only other option is to disable them in windows.

open up MSCONFIG,
click on the boot tab
click advanced
then change the number of "processors" to the amount of cores you want to use.




its unlikely to help you over clock much higher, i wouldn't expect more then 150MHz higher then your current clock at best.

that wont help, the cores will still be active windows wont use them.

disabling HT only removes the extra Virtual cores but they didnt exist in the first place anyway. If you are gaming then turning HT off removes stuttering and shizzle in certain games, if you are doing video editing then HT on is the best idea

 

[OrbitzXT]

um.... if there is no option in the bios to disable the other cores, then the only other option is to disable them in windows.

open up MSCONFIG,
click on the boot tab
click advanced
then change the number of "processors" to the amount of cores you want to use.




its unlikely to help you over clock much higher, i wouldn't expect more then 150MHz higher then your current clock at best.

I might have misspoke. I already have the ability to disable cores in my bios, I know where the option is. I'm just asking if it's worth it, since with 4 active cores they never come close to getting maxed out. So if I go with 2 cores instead, can I overclock higher and get overall better performance out of the games I play which don't even use 4 cores.

 

[Bo$$]

I might have misspoke. I already have the ability to disable cores in my bios, I know where the option is. I'm just asking if it's worth it, since with 4 active cores they never come close to getting maxed out. So if I go with 2 cores instead, can I overclock higher and get overall better performance out of the games I play which don't even use 4 cores.

ah there is an option, yes disabling extra cores=lower heat and more overclocking, but then again performance suffers in some apps as extra cores are gone

which games are you refering to?

 

[slyfox2151]

im going to say its unlikely to help you overclock much higher (as you said heat was not an issue)... what is currently limiting your overclock atm? Cpu volts?

i also would not go below 3 cores, it seems to be the sweet spot right now and has been for a while. even if it looks like only 2 cores are being use'd for the game, it leaves the 3rd for anything else. low priority game threads / windows crap.

 

[micropage7]

I might have misspoke. I already have the ability to disable cores in my bios, I know where the option is. I'm just asking if it's worth it, since with 4 active cores they never come close to getting maxed out. So if I go with 2 cores instead, can I overclock higher and get overall better performance out of the games I play which don't even use 4 cores.

yeah so far it would performs better on dual than triple or quad. only some softwares that can run quad or more to the max

 

[nv40pimp]

Seems pretty pointless IMO... if you're not even coming close to maxing out the chip as is, why try to OC more and take it even further from being maxed?

I say keep it a quad and just clock it as high as it will go.